The plugin pops up in the search result when I was searching for a completely different plugin. Intrigued by the arrogant name, WP Fastest Cache, I went ahead and tested it out in one of my WordPress powered websites. Guess what, it’s not arrogant at all, but elegant. It totally lives up to what its name implies, not only the fastest but the simplest as well.
In a nutshell, WP Fastest Cache is a WordPress plugin that creates static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress website to speed up the site’s performance. The terminology of this creating static HTML files process is called Cache, a must-have for the sites that generate tons of traffic.
I have used WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, and a few other small players before and I actually like WP Fastest Cache the most. And here is why.
It’s so simple to set up
Install the plugin from your WP-admin console, activate it and check all the options that are available in the Settings. You are ready to go.
It does more than caching the web pages
By looking at the screenshot above, you will notice that this plugin does not only caching the web pages but also optimizing the site in many aspects, things like:
- Minify HTML and CSS files
- Combine CSS and JS files
- Enable Gzip Compression
- Leverage browser caching
Don’t overlook these things. They are the factors that are important to your site speed rankings. Rather than implementing them individually on your site, it’s nice to have them all in one place. W3 Total Cache has these features built in as well, but not every plugin has it.
It preloads
This is one of the features I like the most about this plugin. It creates the cache of all the site automatically, rather than waiting for the time when the page is being called. It gives the first-time visitor an extraordinary impression that the site loads super fast. What’s more important, it works well and very steady. Both W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache have this feature but not nearly as good as WP Fastest Cache does.
It doesn’t clean out caches
Unless there is a rule in place to clear up the caches, the caches stay in place untouched. To me, it doesn’t make sense why the cached pages need to be cleared up and regenerated periodically. Once generated, they should just stay there until when a new post is published and their content gets updated.
It’s easy to clear
When needed, you can manually delete cache (only web pages) or delete cache and minified CSS/JS files. And you can do it right from the WordPress control bar at the top of your page.
There are more if you are willing to pay
When upgraded to the Pro version, there are more you can optimize. Image Optimization is one worth the shot. If you have these, you no longer need the other plugins that help the optimization.
Verdict
WP Fastest Cache is not one of the best but the best caching plugin for WordPress. I have switched all my sites to use this plugin to replace W3 Total Cache I used before. So far, I am very pleased.